Something Lifted Their Beds at Woodstock Manor. The Men Thought the House Was Coming Down.

A large black dog entered a bedroom at Woodstock Manor in October 1649. It slipped beneath one of the beds and the men heard something gnawing at the ropes holding their mattresses in place. When morning came, the ropes were untouched, and the animal had vanished.

The men were government commissioners sent to inspect the royal estate after the execution of King Charles I. They had moved into the former king’s rooms, turning his bedroom into a kitchen and his dining room into a place to store firewood. They had even uprooted an ancient tree called the King’s Oak and chopped it into pieces for their fires.

The trouble started almost as soon as they settled in. And whatever had entered the building seemed determined to make sure they got very little sleep.

The Beds Began to Rise

On October 17, the commissioners heard furniture crashing around in another part of the manor. The wood from the King’s Oak had been moved from the dining room into the presence chamber, where chairs and stools were thrown across the floor. Soon, it reached the rooms where the men were sleeping.

Without warning, the foot of one bed rose high above the headboard. The men clung to their bedding, terrified that they were about to be thrown onto the floor. Instead, the bed dropped violently, bouncing its occupants off the mattress before shaking again.

The attacks continued with enough force to leave the men sore the next day. They examined their beds but could find nothing responsible for the movement. The commissioners, many of them experienced military officers, had begun sleeping in fear of what would visit them next.

On October 18, heavy footsteps sounded through the bedroom. A metal bed-warming pan was dragged from another room and battered about so loudly that the men compared the noise to several bells ringing together. The next evening, wooden dinner plates began flying across the rooms, hitting the furniture and the people hiding beneath their blankets.

One man was shaken awake by the shoulder. When he lifted his head to see what was happening, more wooden plates came flying at him. The men were no longer dealing with noises in empty rooms.

The Dog That Couldn’t Protect Them

On October 20, the bed curtains began opening and closing by themselves. Eight large pewter dishes and dozens of wooden plates flew around the bedroom, some landing on the beds. The furniture shook while the men struggled to protect themselves.

The following night, the keeper of the commissioners’ lodging brought his female dog into the room. For the first time in days, the men slept without anything disturbing them. They were so relieved that they credited the animal with keeping the unwanted visitor away.

But the relief lasted only one night. On October 22, the dog became frightened, letting out a miserable yelp as the activity returned. Whatever had frightened the commissioners was now frightening the animal that was meant to protect them.

The next night, their blankets were pulled away while bricks tumbled from the chimney. On October 24, one man heard a huge crash from another bedroom and hurried to check whether his friends were hurt. When he returned to his own bed, he found two dozen wooden plates tucked beneath the covers.

The disturbance grew stranger on October 25. Broken glass suddenly flew around the bedroom, scattering across the floor and bedding, even though the windows remained intact. The men lit candles and gathered the pieces the following morning, trying to understand where so much glass had come from.

Eighty Stones Came Flying Through the Bedroom

On October 29, heavy footsteps moved through the adjoining room for nearly an hour. The unseen visitor opened and closed a window before entering the bedroom. Large stones began flying toward the beds, continuing for about half an hour.

The men counted roughly eighty stones in all. Some struck the larger bed, while others landed on the smaller bed used by the servants. Before they could recover, two monstrous crashes shook the building. The noises sounded like dozens of cannons being fired together. People living nearby heard the commotion, while the commissioners shouted to one another for help. One frightened officer grabbed his sword and nearly hit a fellow commissioner who had climbed out of bed.

The men gathered in the same room, hoping they would be safer together. But the walls continued shaking so violently that they feared the entire manor might collapse around them. No matter how many candles they lit or how closely they watched the doors, they could not stop the nightly attacks.

The disturbances also drew attention outside the manor. People from the surrounding area came to inspect the damage and examine the strange objects found in the rooms. The noises had become so loud that even people working in the park after dark were frightened away.

Something With a Horse’s Hoof Entered the Room

By early November, the activity had become more violent. Something entered the bedroom with heavy footsteps that sounded like a bear walking across the floor. It overturned and battered the warming pan before sending more glass, large stones, and horse bones flying toward the beds.

The men filled their rooms with candles and built large fires in the fireplaces. They hoped the light would help them see whatever was attacking them. Instead, the candles went out and burning pieces of wood were thrown around the room.

The bed curtains were ripped from their rods. Bedposts split, and the heavy frames supporting the curtains above the beds came crashing down. The servants sleeping in a smaller bed were so scared they hid under their covers as the room came apart around them.

Something wet began falling onto the servants. Moments later, a much larger quantity of foul-smelling green water poured over their bed, soaking their clothes and sheets. The men scrambled to escape as more terrible noises erupted throughout the manor.

One commissioner finally gathered enough courage to challenge the invisible visitor. He demanded to know what it was, what it wanted, and why it was tormenting them. For a short while, the noise stopped.

But the silence did not last.

A man lit another candle and placed it in the doorway between two rooms. As he watched, he saw the shape of a horse’s hoof strike the candle and send it flying into the bedroom.

Another commissioner drew his sword, determined to defend himself. Before he could use it, an invisible hand seized the weapon and began pulling against him. The force wrestled the sword away and struck him with its handle, leaving him stunned.

The Commissioners Finally Abandoned the Manor

The terrified men fled into the presence chamber, where they gathered together to pray and sing psalms. The deafening noises continued in the surrounding rooms, although the chamber where they sheltered remained quiet. By this point, they had endured more than two weeks of activity and could no longer bear sleeping in the king’s bedrooms.

On November 3, they moved their lodgings to rooms above the gatehouse. Even there, the troubles were not entirely finished, and the strange activity continued during the final days of their visit. The commissioners eventually abandoned the manor and left Woodstock altogether.

The people of the area gave the presence a name: the Just Devil of Woodstock. The nickname reflected the strange idea that something inside the old royal residence was punishing the men who had come to strip it of its treasures. The events became famous enough to appear in articles and later books about England’s worst hauntings.

But one final detail made the story even stranger. After the commissioners had gone, other visitors stayed in the same royal bedrooms where the beds had been lifted, the furniture broken, and the stones thrown.

According to Robert Plot’s journals from 1677, those later guests slept there without experiencing anything unusual.